


A Modern Yuletide Carol

by Kantayra



Category: Tennis no Oujisama | Prince of Tennis
Genre: Christmas, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-18
Updated: 2010-01-18
Packaged: 2017-10-19 02:09:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,820
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/195697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kantayra/pseuds/Kantayra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The week before Christmas, Kaneda faces off against puberty, Akazawa’s habit of wearing far too little clothing, three separate brilliant master plans by Mizuki, and St. Rudolph’s surly sub-regular tennis team, yet somehow still manages to come out on top.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Modern Yuletide Carol

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for crowitched for strudy_exchange [here](http://community.livejournal.com/strudy_exchange/17521.html).

The week before Christmas, Kaneda woke up, went to the bathroom, and screamed.

“Will you keep it down in there?” Kisarazu banged on the paper-thin wall. “Some of us are trying to sleep!”

Kaneda yelped, but it came out of his mouth as a weird squeak. He wanted to cover his mouth with his hands, but that was unsanitary, and he was standing in the middle of a dorm bathroom by the urinal, where anyone could walk in at any time, and there was _hair in his crotch_.

Kaneda felt a bit dizzy and staggered into the shower. The hot water helped, and the shower curtain at least gave him privacy while he stared at his body’s latest bizarre innovation. His body’s latest bizarre innovation stared right back up at him. It was weird and kind of nubbly when Kaneda touched it, and Kaneda tried not to touch it too much, because then the previous twist-spin puberty had thrown at him would rear its ugly head, too.

At that moment, the bathroom door opened, and deep-voiced humming reverberated nicely throughout the bathroom. Kaneda froze in the shower.

“ _Saru_ , gorilla, chimpanzee!” Akazawa’s bass rumbled through the bathroom. It was that same stupid song that had been stuck in everyone’s heads since Nationals.

Kaneda tried really, really hard not to be turned on by it, but he just ended up _really, really hard_. Kaneda reached over and turned the shower nozzle to freezing cold. That helped a little. Mentally, he cursed his idiotic body, while Akazawa fussed around at the sink on the other side of the bathroom. Kaneda’s only saving grace was that at least Akazawa didn’t know it was him.

“Who’s up already?” Akazawa finally asked, entering the shower area. Kaneda imagined he could hear the padding of Akazawa’s bare feet on the wet tile, even though that was technically impossible with the shower on.

It left Kaneda in a predicament. He really didn’t want to face Akazawa right now, especially since Akazawa seemed to have absolutely no shame when it came to boys in locker rooms. On the other hand, they had all conspired (okay, _Mizuki_ had conspired) to get the whole team on the same floor, so Akazawa _knew_ whoever was in the shower was on the team. In the end, there was really nothing Kaneda could do to hide.

“It’s me.” Kaneda’s voice broke on the last word, and it came out as a squeak. He blushed and was infinitely grateful that the shower curtain concealed his embarrassment.

“Ah, Kaneda,” Akazawa’s voice rolled rhythmically over Kaneda’s name, making it sound like pure sin. Kaneda turned the water colder. “Lovely morning, isn’t it?”

The sky was overcast and intermittently sputtering out a depressing raining/sleeting mess. Kaneda was faced with the recurring horror that he was getting a hard-on from an incurable _morning person_. It just added insult to injury.

“Just fine!” Kaneda squeaked. He’d debated once asking Mizuki to gather data on whether Kaneda’s voice really broke more often when Akazawa was nearby, or it just _felt_ that way because it was twice as embarrassing.

“Mizuki’s called for a team meeting at breakfast,” Akazawa commented with a hint of annoyance in his voice.

“I, uh, got the e-mail last night.” Mizuki’s e-mail had been brief, to the point, and designed to purposefully challenge Akazawa’s authority: _Breakfast 7:30 sharp. I wish to discuss the team’s future with you all._

“Hmm,” Akazawa acknowledged, “good.”

Kaneda heard the water turn on the next shower over. He breathed a sigh of relief and turned his own water off. He reached blindly for his towel, rubbed it through his hair, and stepped out of the shower.

Akazawa stood just outside, wearing nothing but the _tiniest_ white towel around his waist, bronzed skin rippling with muscle _everywhere_.

Kaneda froze, gaped, and instantly brought his towel down to cover his crotch. Thankfully, the move could be interpreted as modesty, rather than a pathetic attempt to cover his instant, painfully hard erection. “W-Why aren’t you in the shower?” Kaneda stuttered helplessly.

Akazawa looked completely baffled as to what could possibly be bothering Kaneda. “I’m waiting for the water to heat up.” Already billows of steam were rising from Akazawa’s empty shower. Akazawa liked things hot, Kaneda was reminded. Hot and sweaty and _naked_ …

“I, uh, forgot to wash my hair!” Kaneda squawked, dashed back into his own shower, and turned the cold water on full blast again. It wasn’t a promising start to his day.

***

“For Christmas,” Mizuki announced at their ‘official’ team meeting at the breakfast table, “we will finally defeat our eternal rivals once and for all!” He sat back with a satisfied smile on his face.

Everyone else blinked at him.

“Our eternal rivals?” Yanagisawa asked. “Who’s that _this_ week, huh?”

“Hyotei?” Nomura guessed.

“No,” Mizuki glared at him. “Hyotei were our eternal rivals _last_ week.”

Akazawa snorted. “What changed? Atobe finally block your cell number?”

Mizuki fixed him with an icy stare. “And all the landlines originating from this school building, if you must know,” he answered breezily. “But that is beside the point. Hyotei were never worthy rivals, anyway.”

“Really?” Yanagisawa frowned. “Because they were the ones who eliminated us at Prefecturals…”

Yuta paused for one moment in shoveling his plate of food directly into his mouth to scowl. He still hadn’t forgiven Akutagawa for his defeat, as he would tell anyone who was stupid enough to let the topic of conversation drift that way in his presence.

Kaneda was nowhere near that stupid. “So who _are_ our eternal rivals, then?” he asked curiously.

“It _better_ not be Ginka again,” Akazawa taunted Mizuki.

Kisarazu was falling asleep in his seat. Kaneda watched as his chin dipped lower, inch by inch, ever closer to his potatoes.

“Not Ginka,” Mizuki shuddered. “That was merely an experiment. Their captain offered, so I thought I’d give it a try. Now, let us never speak of it again.”

Akazawa grunted. Everyone was more than happy to go along with that last command.

“No,” Mizuki continued, “I’m talking about our _true_ eternal rivals, the originals. Hyotei was just a distraction from our real goal.”

Everyone blinked at him again.

“ _Seigaku_!” Mizuki finally exclaimed, frustrated.

“Oh,” Akazawa rolled his eyes.

“Uh, they did win Nationals, you know,” Nomura ventured. “Maybe they’re just a bit out of our league?”

“I would’ve thought that Seigaku’s rivals were Rikkaidai,” Yanagisawa said thoughtfully. “Or maybe Hyotei, huh?”

Kisarazu’s head dipped another inch lower. It caused the ribbon in his hair to fall forward. It landed _so close_ to the pool of gravy on his plate. Kaneda watched with rapt, morbid fascination.

“We played Seigaku first,” Mizuki huffed, “so they’re _our_ eternal rivals.”

“By that logic, they should be _Fudomine’s_ eternal rivals,” Yanagisawa pointed out.

“Shinya?” Mizuki glared at him.

“Yeah?”

“Shut up.”

Yanagisawa let out a growling sound, and his hand clenched around his bun, squishing it into a pasty semi-liquid. Akazawa’s palm caught him in the center of the chest and pushed him back down into his seat before breakfast could erupt into yet _another_ food fight.

“Even if Seigaku _were_ our eternal rivals,” Akazawa pointed out evilly, “it wouldn’t matter. Didn’t _Tezuka_ block your cell number, too?”

Mizuki gave him a sour look, which then turned to a wicked smirk. “It doesn’t matter,” Mizuki said proudly. “We have a secret weapon.”

“We do?” Nomura blinked.

Mizuki slung a comradely arm around Yuta’s shoulders. Yuta paused in cramming food down his throat to look up and blink in surprise when he discovered that there was an actual team meeting taking place around his food.

“Fuji won’t block Yuta’s number,” Mizuki announced. “Heh-heh-heh…”

“Huh?” Yuta looked around, confused. “What?”

Akazawa favored Yuta with a level look. “Mizuki wants you to call your brother and harass him into making Seigaku play us for a Christmas match.”

Yuta groaned. “Oh, hell no. And Shusuke told me not to relay any more messages from you,” Yuta told Mizuki. “He says you’re annoying.”

Mizuki sputtered. Akazawa chuckled. Yanagisawa snorted and choked on his milk. Kaneda slapped him on the back. Kisarazu’s face finally fell forward just as Yuta realized that Kisarazu wasn’t eating anyway and snatched his plate right out from under him.

“Thanks, Atsushi-senpai,” Yuta said with half the contents of Kisarazu’s plate already in his mouth.

Kisarazu’s forehead hit the table harmlessly, and he let out an epic snore.

“Oh my God!” Nomura checked his watch. “Hurry up, guys! We’re going to be late for _choir practice_!”

For Nomura, that was pretty much the end of the world.

***

Kaneda sat at the far back and watched Sister Sakamoto yell at the boys in the bass section, including Akazawa, for intentionally parodying the hymn lyrics. In the meantime, Sister Catherine worried her hands together and fumbled over sheet music. Nomura was trying to help her, but he seemed to be putting everything in the wrong place. Sister Catherine smiled at him gratefully anyway, and then Nomura tripped over his own feet. Kaneda sighed and picked at the scab on his wrist.

“This is _boring_ ,” Yuta complained, yawning. He and Kaneda had both been relegated to the ‘Dear _God_ , their voices are changing! Hide them at the back of the choir and hope no one can hear them!’ section for the Christmas recital.

“Why don’t you call your brother?” Mizuki suggested unhelpfully. Mizuki was supposed to be in the tenor section (even though he was technically a countertenor and had been swearing his revenge ever since that designation had been bestowed upon him), but he’d come over to bother Yuta when it became apparent that Sister Sakamoto wasn’t going to succeed in stopping the bass section from making farting noises any time soon.

“No,” Yuta scowled at him. “I’m not losing to my brother at tennis on Christmas.”

“Fine, then I’ll play him.”

“ _You’re_ not losing to my brother at tennis on Christmas, either,” Yuta smirked.

Mizuki huffed. “Me? Lose? It’s unthinkable!”

Yuta smirked more.

“If you don’t call him,” Mizuki threatened, “I’ll go over to Seigaku myself.”

“Like that will help.” Yuta rolled his eyes.

“And I’ll tell him you’re in choir and that we have a performance on Christmas Eve.”

Yuta’s eyes widened. “You wouldn’t!”

Mizuki smiled evilly.

Yuta scowled. “Fine, fine, I’ll call him. But he’ll still say no.”

“I just need you to call,” Mizuki insisted. “Leave everything else up to me.”

“Fine, whatever,” Yuta grumbled.

“Excellent.” Mizuki steepled his fingers before him. “Everything is falling into place.”

Kaneda sighed and watched Sister Sakamoto turn her back on the bass section, freeze, and then turn sharply back around to glare at them again. This time they managed not to make any obscene noises, although Akazawa was obviously trying very hard not to laugh. He had very white teeth, Kaneda noticed, not for the first time. They perfectly set off the deep tan of his skin, making it look so smooth, rich, delicious…

“Oh, stop ogling him already,” Mizuki let out a put-upon sigh. “I’m getting cavities just looking at you.”

Kaneda turned to look at where Mizuki’s hand had crept to within an inch of Yuta’s thigh. He wisely didn’t say anything, although really that was mostly because he didn’t want his voice to crack and embarrass him again.

“Boys, return to your places!” Sister Sakamoto ordered with an authoritative flick of her wrist.

“Go ahead, dear,” Sister Catherine encouraged Nomura, taking the stack of sheet music from his hands. “Sister Sakamoto is starting.”

Nomura’s entire face turned red, and he stumbled over his feet again on the way back to the tenor section.

Mizuki sighed wearily and reluctantly separated himself from Yuta’s side. “During lunch break,” he decided.

Yuta just grunted sullenly and crossed his arms over his chest.

Mizuki somehow interpreted that as an encouraging sign and returned to his spot.

“Now, everybody,” Sister Sakamoto stood at the front of the choir, her hands held out in a way that was probably supposed to look like a conductor but ended up more like a deranged chicken. “On three. One, two…”

Sister Catherine’s fingers glided over the piano keys for the opening refrain, and then Sister Sakamoto’s hands danced in the air, indicating for them to start.

“Oh, we like sheep!” bellowed the bass section.

Sister Catherine’s hands faltered, and Sister Sakamoto snarled in their direction. “How many times do I have to tell you?” she snapped. “It’s ‘All we, like sheep, have gone astray’!”

Akazawa snickered.

Kaneda propped his chin up on one hand and sighed longingly. He was starting to agree with Nomura: he wished choir practice would _never_ end.

***

Unfortunately, choir practice did end, all too quickly, but morning classes seemed like they were _never_ going to. Kaneda doodled absentmindedly on the back of his notebook, while Sister Josephine told them how they were all going to Hell.

“Wait,” Fukuoka was confused, as usual, “so you go to Hell for even _thinking_ about girls?”

Kaneda buried his face deeper into his notebook and tried not to blush too much. The notebook page he’d randomly flipped to happened to have ‘Akazawa Ichiro’ written all over it in big, loopy letters. That really didn’t help things.

“Lust is a Cardinal Sin,” Sister Josephine informed him solemnly. She was a horrible, grumpy old woman who had once told Yuta that he was going to Hell for chewing gum, since gluttony was a sin. As a result, everyone had made fun of her behind her back by draping sheets over their heads like nuns’ habits and condemning each other to Hell, until Sister Josephine caught them at it one day and made the whole second-year class copy Bible pages for an entire weekend. In Latin. No one had dared to cross her since, even though she was still a horrible, grumpy old woman.

“But you wouldn’t even be _doing_ anything,” Fukuoka insisted. “You’d just see some girl and think she was cute.”

“Sins of thought are still Sins,” Sister Josephine countered. “They take you further away from God.”

“But that’s not fair!” Fukuoka protested.

“It is fair to the genuinely virtuous,” Sister Josephine proclaimed.

“ _No one_ is that virtuous,” Fukuoka grumbled, and it was clear that this would be another of their debates that dragged on all class.

Kaneda tuned them out. He wondered what Sister Josephine would say if she knew he’d just written ‘Kaneda Yoshiro’ all over his notebook page in pen, so that it overlapped with the ‘Akazawa Ichiro’ from before. Was it worse that he wanted to take Akazawa’s name, or that he wanted Akazawa to take his? Or would he just go to Hell for thinking of the question in the first place?

Knowing Sister Josephine, it was probably the last one.

***

“Team meeting! Team meeting!” Mizuki whispered at them all in a voice that wasn’t very hushed at all. “Secret team meeting!” Students from all the nearby tables looked over, curious at Mizuki’s very ill-kept secret.

Kisarazu groaned and poked at his rice with a chopstick. “Can’t you call Seigaku from here? It’s cold and raining outside.”

“You’re such a wimp,” Yanagisawa teased him.

Kisarazu glared at him. “At least I didn’t fall asleep in history class.”

“Yeah, well, who fell asleep at breakfast, huh?”

Kisarazu just snorted and returned to poking his rice. It was a weird, gooey-gray color today. At least it wasn’t blue. Kaneda still had nightmares about the time the rice was blue.

“I can’t believe this,” Mizuki sighed dramatically. “None of you take this team seriously.”

“The season’s already over,” Akazawa pointed out. “Technically, we’re not even really part of the team anymore.”

“It’s not over until it’s over,” Mizuki glared at him. “Now, we are _going_ to finally beat Seigaku and have our revenge.”

“But we are _not_ going outside in the rain in the middle of lunch,” Akazawa insisted sternly, arms crossed over his broad chest.

Mizuki scowled at him, then looked at Kaneda, who was having a really hard time not staring at Akazawa’s biceps. Mizuki sighed, met Kisarazu and Yanagisawa’s insistent looks, and gave up. “Fine,” he grumbled. “We’ll do it here. Give me your phone, Yuta.”

Yuta was shoveling his food again. Kaneda wondered sometimes where all that food went. Yuta never got fat, but he didn’t seem to be growing, either. Kaneda didn’t think Yuta spent many more hours in the gym than he did, so it was one of the great mysteries of the universe.

“Yuta,” Mizuki pressed, nudging him in the shoulder.

“Huh?” Yuta looked up at him and blinked.

Mizuki sighed wearily. “Our comeback match?” he reminded Yuta.

Yuta snorted and pulled out his cell phone. “Good luck.” He tossed it into Mizuki’s lap. “You’ll need it.”

Mizuki shoved Yuta in the shoulder. Yuta shoved him back, just for good measure. That meant that Mizuki crashed into Nomura, who in turn crashed into Akazawa, who crashed right into Kaneda, just as Kaneda had been debating the lickability of Akazawa’s neck, right where it joined to his ear.

Kaneda realized, with a sudden, confusing mixture of lust and alarm, that his lap was full of Akazawa, and that smooth, honeyed skin was just inches away from his lips. Akazawa glared back over his shoulder at Nomura, and Kaneda was treated to a whiff of lemon-scented soap and raw, masculine scent. Akazawa’s hand had landed on the far side of Kaneda’s lap, propping Akazawa up over him. Instinctively, Kaneda shifted so that his thigh was pressed up against Akazawa’s wrist. He shut his eyes for one perfect moment, absorbing the heat of Akazawa’s body into his memory to replay in his head over and over again that night while he lay in bed.

Akazawa belatedly realized his precarious position and gave Kaneda a sheepish smile. “My apologies.” His voice rumbled its way down straight to Kaneda’s newly-hairy groin.

Kaneda opened his mouth to say something stupid like, “Take me now, Akazawa-senpai!” but fortunately his voice cracked in a way that sounded like a violin dying, and he was spared the humiliating rejection.

Akazawa crawled back off his lap and was staring down Nomura, who was apologizing and pointing accusing fingers at Mizuki and Yuta. Kaneda felt as though a part of him had been ripped away.

“Why do I have to do it?” Yuta whined in the meantime.

“Because he’ll just hang up on me,” Mizuki insisted.

“This is stupid.”

“You promised,” Mizuki reminded him. Possibly he fluttered his eyelashes; Kaneda really couldn’t see.

In any case, Yuta wasn’t impressed. “ _You_ do it.” He shoved his phone back into Mizuki’s lap.

Mizuki smirked, twirled a lock of hair around his finger, and picked up the phone. “Fine. I’ll prove it to you.” He flipped through Yuta’s phone to find the right number and hit the call button.

Everyone watched curiously while Mizuki drummed his fingers impatiently on the dining-hall table. Then, a vicious little spark glinted in Mizuki’s eyes. “Ah, Seigaku’s Fuji,” Mizuki’s voice turned downright diabolical. “Heh-heh, it is I, your—” He didn’t get any further than that. Mizuki scowled down at the phone.

Yuta snorted into his soup.

“See?” Mizuki said smugly. “He hung up on me.”

“No, _duh_!” Yuta rolled his eyes. “Now, can we forget about this stupid rival thing and—”

“Stupid?” Mizuki sputtered. “Well, excuse me for thinking that preparing this team for next year is _stupid_!” He got up and stalked off in a huff.

Yuta stared longingly down at his food. Then, he looked hopefully up at the rest of the team.

“ _I’m_ not going after him, huh,” Yanagisawa helpfully provided what they were all thinking.

Yuta sighed wearily and slouched off after Mizuki.

Kisarazu blinked and watched them go. “Those two are very strange,” he decided and poked his rice some more.

Kaneda bit his lip and looked over at Akazawa.

Akazawa sighed. “I suppose Mizuki only wants to preserve St. Rudolph’s legacy for next year,” he concluded bitterly, like it caused him actual, physical pain to say something nice about Mizuki like that. “It’s…hard, with high school coming up. We only have a couple of months left together.” He sipped his juice.

Kaneda felt a twist of panic in his stomach, because he tried really hard not to think about those things, about how, come April, he wouldn’t have Akazawa to look forward to anymore: nearly nude in the bathroom every morning, and horsing around all through choir practice, and sweaty and furious and taking the tennis team to task at practice.

“This is gross,” Kisarazu said and poked his gooey, gray rice some more.

“It’s _always_ gross, huh,” Yanagisawa teased him. “You’re such a priss.”

Kisarazu glared at him prissily.

Yanagisawa flicked a bit of his own rice onto Kisarazu’s cheek.

Kisarazu sputtered in outrage, grabbed a spare shrimp, and flung it ‘splat!’ into the direct center of Yanagisawa’s forehead.

Chaos ensued at that point, and all of the St. Rudolph tennis team (sans Mizuki and Yuta, for once) got written up for food-fighting for the fourth time that month.

“Next year,” Akazawa sighed wearily after Father Tsukui finally finished chewing them out and let them go, “this is one team ritual that you should probably get rid of.”

Kaneda felt a lot sicker at that thought than he had the entire time the headmaster had been yelling at them.

***

Afternoon classes were as boring as ever, but by the time they were out, Mizuki and Yuta seemed to have made up somehow. Mizuki shuffled them all into a vacant club room, which hadn’t been so vacant after all, if the glares the astronomy club were giving them were any indication. Mizuki just _smirked_ at them and twirled a lock of hair around his finger, though. Kaneda really didn’t want to know how Mizuki had blackmailed them.

Mizuki then slammed the door on the forlorn astronomy club and informed them all, “Yuta has an important announcement to make.”

Yuta sulked at his desk in the corner and finally mumbled out, “So I talked to my brother.”

Apparently, that was all the announcing Yuta got to do, because Mizuki cut in then. “He refused, naturally. Of course, he must be terrified of what would happen should such a nationally-ranked team face a humiliating defeat at the hand of their arch-rivals.”

Yanagisawa groaned, expressing a sentiment they were all feeling just then: _Dear God, Mizuki’s insanity is never going to end!_

Kisarazu scrunched up his nose in distaste. “I’m sure that’s not what Seigaku’s Fuji _actually_ said,” he insisted.

“Well, it was implied.” Mizuki waved one hand airily.

“Mizuki,” Akazawa practically growled.

Kaneda shifted in his pants pointedly at that low rumble, trying to alleviate any potential friction on certain portions of his anatomy, which foolishly wished that Akazawa would growl out _his_ name like that.

“Tell us what _actually_ happened,” Akazawa demanded.

Mizuki pouted, crossed his arms over his chest, and sat down atop Yuta’s desk. Yuta blinked in surprise that his view had suddenly become Mizuki’s ass in tight jeans. “Fine,” Mizuki huffed wearily. “He said that Tezuka was in Germany, Echizen in the United States, Oishi was cramming to get into some science school, Kikumaru was vacationing with his family, and Kawamura had quit tennis to become a sushi chef or something else equally ridiculous. It was obviously just an excuse.”

“It sounds like,” Akazawa cut in with a nasty smile, “Seigaku realizes that the season is _over_ and is moving on with their lives.”

Mizuki scowled at him, and he did a little bit of growling of his own. Only, after Akazawa’s beautiful demonstration of what a real manly growl should sound like earlier, Mizuki came off sounding unfortunately like an irritated little kitten.

Yuta put a hand on Mizuki’s arm to quiet him, nonetheless, and instantly Mizuki relaxed and the smug smile returned to his face. “And that,” Mizuki concluded with finality, “is why St. Rudolph is going to annihilate them _next_ year.”

“Next year?” Nomura squeaked. “We won’t even _be_ here!”

“No,” Mizuki agreed, “but Yuta here will, and so will Kaneda.”

Kaneda jerked up in sudden alarm at finding himself the center of Mizuki’s latest plan. “Huh?”

“New plan,” Mizuki announced triumphantly. “Seigaku will never suspect us of attacking after their team has already disbanded. It’s perfect.”

Yanagisawa blinked at him. “It’s _insane_ , huh,” he complained. “They won’t even think it’s us, because it _won’t_ be, so what’s the point?”

“It’s perfect,” Mizuki insisted. “ _We_ will know about our legacy’s stunning victory.”

Yuta gurgled a bit where his cheek was propped up on one elbow. He looked supremely bored. “Great,” he said wearily, “can we go now? Kaneda and I still have to run practice, you know.”

“You won’t have time for that,” Mizuki assured him. “I need your help to create our ultimate weapon for next year.”

Yuta gurgled some more.

Kisarazu made a gurgling noise, too, but that was his stomach growling. Given that he hadn’t eaten much of anything for breakfast or lunch, Kaneda wasn’t surprised. “Is that it, then?” he complained. “’Cause I want to go out for _real_ lunch.”

“This wouldn’t be a problem if you weren’t too prissy to eat the cafeteria food,” Yanagisawa taunted him.

Kisarazu glared.

“Priss, priss, priss!” Yanagisawa teased.

Kisarazu shoved him half out of his desk. Soon, chalk and erasers were flying across the room.

“Can _I_ go start practice, then?” Kaneda asked hopefully.

Mizuki blinked at him like he had forgotten anybody but Yuta existed. “Hmm, yes, go ahead.” He shoved another notebook, detailing his brilliant master plan, under Yuta’s nose. Yuta gurgled yet again.

Kaneda got up.

Akazawa got up a second behind him. “I’ll go with you. I could use some practice with the back-up ball machine.”

Kaneda felt his face go warm and tried to fight back the reaction.

“Nomura, coming?” Akazawa inquired.

 _Say no, say no…_ Kaneda’s inner voice chanted.

“I promised Sister Catherine that I’d help her copy all the beginner sentences onto the board for this afternoon’s prep class,” Nomura sighed dreamily.

Akazawa made a face and pressed his hand against the small of Kaneda’s back to guide him out the door.

Kaneda tried very hard not to come on the spot.

It was turning out to be a wonderful day.

***

The problem with going to practice with Akazawa was that Kaneda had no clue what to do with his hands. The pockets in his tennis shorts were too low to stick his hands in them comfortably without lumbering like a big, dumb, klutzy dinosaur. If he swung them back and forth, 1) he looked like a moron, and 2) he might put out another first-year’s eye. He could always fist them at his sides, but then they got all sweaty and clammy and gross.

The worst part was that, beside him, Akazawa hummed under his breath and clearly wasn’t worrying about what to do with his hands at _all_.

Needless to say, Kaneda didn’t get up the guts to say anything, let alone, “You’re so dreamy, Akazawa-senpai! Make me yours!” Instead, he acted like a complete mute while Akazawa commented on some of the younger players’ weaknesses, and then nodded idiotically when Akazawa wished him well with practice and went off to train on his own.

Kaneda was still standing there nodding when the sub-regulars arrived.

“Kaneda-senpai?” Morino asked, puzzled.

Kaneda blinked out of his trance and frowned. He was _never_ going to get used to being called ‘senpai.’ “Twenty laps around the gym,” he ordered, “and then swing practice.”

There were some groans, but eventually everyone filed out along the perimeter of the gymnasium, all jogging along at different paces. Kaneda picked up the rear and got the first-years at the back of the line to pick up the pace. It was a pretty thankless job. The only saving grace was that, at the top end of the gym, Kaneda could just see into the indoor practice courts where Akazawa was sweating, panting, and returning the balls from the machine at a frantic pace.

“Kaneda-senpai, I’m going to _die_!” Tsurumi whined.

“Only three more laps,” Kaneda pushed him. _Three more blissful glimpses of Akazawa-senpai’s ass._

He didn’t say that last part out loud.

***

Nagging a bunch of unruly first- and second-years into running laps, doing drills, and actually playing their practice matches was frustrating enough to make Kaneda want to scream. Kaneda vaguely recalled that it had been like this the winter of his first year, too, except then it had been Akazawa running the practice, and Kaneda (and only Kaneda) had been more than eager to do everything Akazawa said.

It was a lot different when Kaneda was the one in charge. For one, the view wasn’t as nice (except the rare glimpses Kaneda managed to snatch of Akazawa on the far court). For another, he didn’t have Akazawa to fall back on anymore.

“You all need to work on your footwork,” Kaneda wearily informed the group of first-years who were only halfheartedly playing their practice doubles match anyway. “A hundred squats each.”

Kamata (whom Kaneda inwardly called Little Whiner) whined. “But Kaneda-senpai,” he complained, “it’s almost _Christmas_. Why do we even have to have practice if—?”

“Would you prefer to do those squats outside in the cold?” a delicious, low, rumbling voice came from behind Kaneda’s shoulder.

“C-Captain Akazawa!” Kamata squeaked. “No, sir! We’ll get to them right now!” The first-years leapt to their feet with incredible vigor.

Kaneda slumped as he watched them go. “Thanks, Akazawa-senpai,” he said tiredly.

Akazawa slung a comradely arm around Kaneda’s shoulders, and Kaneda’s face ended up in roughly the vicinity of Akazawa’s armpit. Kaneda knew there was something wrong with him because there was nowhere in the world he’d rather be than in Akazawa’s sweaty, hairy armpit right then. Clearly, hormones were the exact same thing as insanity.

“You’ll have to look out for them when I’m gone,” Akazawa said soberly.

It was almost enough to ruin Kaneda’s joy at smelling Akazawa’s tennis musk. “That’s not for a while yet.”

“Hmm, but soon.” Akazawa surveyed the practice around them. “This team could do great things.”

“Unless Mizuki recruits another team right out from under their noses,” Kaneda retorted.

Akazawa chuckled to himself. “Mizuki does tend to do that. It’s up to you to make this team good enough to stand up to them.”

Kaneda’s stomach felt a little queasy at the thought.

Akazawa graced him with a secretive little smile. “I have faith in you,” he informed Kaneda and walked back to his court.

Kaneda watched him go with dreamy, star-struck eyes.

“Kaneda-senpai?” a voice sounded beside him.

“Our captain’s so inspirational, isn’t he?” Kaneda breathed longingly and watched Akazawa miss his backhand by mere inches.

“Goddamn son of a _bitch_ , _arrrrrrgh_!” Akazawa growled at the top of his lungs and smashed the next ball right back into the ball machine.

Kaneda sighed.

“Sure thing, Kaneda-senpai,” the voice sounded slightly confused. “But can you help us with our serves? Nothing wants to go in today.”

Kaneda forced himself to look away from Akazawa to where Morino blinked hopefully up at him. “Of course,” he agreed. It was encouraging, in a way. At least _all_ the first-years weren’t hopeless.

Or that was what Kaneda thought before he saw their serves.

***

That night, things were tense at dinner. Whatever expedition Mizuki and Yuta had been on obviously hadn’t gone well, and they weren’t talking to each other for whatever reason. Yanagisawa and Kisarazu had eaten enough out that they didn’t even show up at dinner, so their bickering wasn’t present to break up the icy silence between Mizuki and Yuta. The only one who _did_ feel like talking was Nomura, and all he wanted to talk about was how sweet and smart and funny Sister Catherine was. Akazawa had left early.

So Kaneda left early, too, returned to his room, and flopped back on his bed with a sigh. Tomorrow was the last day of school before break. Usually that would be good: no classes, more tennis practice for those who stayed over the vacation (including Kaneda), and the general chaos that teenage boys with too much free time naturally provided.

However, today Kaneda’s mind was weighed down with too many thoughts. They really only had a few months left together, and then the team would scatter. Akazawa was going to St. Sebastian, which was the recommended high school for good St. Rudolph Catholics, as was Nomura. But Kaneda doubted that any of Mizuki’s other recruits were. And, even if Kaneda _wanted_ to follow Akazawa to St. Sebastian, there was still a year apart in the middle.

It was depressing.

So Kaneda did what he always did when things were too depressing: masturbated to thoughts of Akazawa in a Speedo. Actually, that was pretty much what Kaneda did no matter what his mood, whenever he was left alone in his dorm room this past year.

It worked like a charm for distracting Kaneda from everything else in the known universe, and today Kaneda had a wonderful, recent vision of Akazawa nearly naked and waiting for the shower to jerk off to.

Casting a quick glance at the door to make sure it was locked, Kaneda pushed down his boxers, pulled the blanket up over his chest (just in case), and began to run his hand idly up and down his erection.

Kaneda squeezed his eyes shut tight, and he was back in the shower, only this time he let the water run as hot as he could. As hot at Akazawa liked it. The steam billowed up around him, and then Akazawa’s deep voice purred behind him.

_“Kaneda…”_

Kaneda let out a little gasp and a squeak, and his hand beneath the covers doubled its speed. There were days when just imagining Akazawa saying his name made Kaneda come. Today, he held himself back just enough, though, and he let the fantasy continue.

The rumble of Kaneda’s name was followed by a hot breath against the back of his neck, and then tanned, muscular arms were encircling Kaneda’s slighter frame from behind.

 _“Let me take care of you,”_ Fantasy Akazawa breathed against Kaneda’s ear.

Kaneda gave in, let powerful, calloused hands take him, stroking longer, harder, faster… Kaneda leaned back into Akazawa’s naked body, felt slick, toned flesh all around him, cradling him perfectly, and then if he pushed back with his ass just _so_ , he’d feel…

“Akazawa-senpai!” Kaneda cried out with an anguished moan and came all over his stomach.

He gasped in the aftermath, sweaty and sticky on his bed, before he groaned and reached over for some tissues to clean himself off.

As he was doing so, he heard through the wall, “Sister Catherine!” in the exact same tone Kaneda was sure he’d just exclaimed Akazawa’s name. Kaneda made a face. Sometimes, living in a dorm really sucked.

***

Kaneda always slept amazingly well after jerking off to Akazawa. He woke up from a deep, warm haze to the sound of knocking on his door.

“Kaneda? Kaneda, are you in there?” Nomura’s voice came, followed by more vigorous rapping. “You’re going to miss breakfast if you don’t get up right now.”

Kaneda grumbled into his pillow, his sleep-hazed brain still half convinced it was Akazawa’s chest.

“Kaneda?” Nomura’s voice sounded again. “Get up. Captain Akazawa wanted to talk to you before choir practice. He said it was important.”

 _That_ got Kaneda out of bed and dressed, lightning-fast. Kaneda made a face at not getting to shower before school, but at least he’d mostly wiped off last night, so he wasn’t disgustingly sticky.

“Did Akazawa-senpai say what he wanted?” Kaneda demanded, slipping on his jacket and toeing the door closed behind him.

Nomura shrugged. “Mizuki wants to talk to us all, too.”

Kaneda bit back a groan, even more so when they got to the dining hall, and Mizuki sat at the end of the table with a cat-who-ate-the-canary smirk on his face. Kaneda really didn’t want to know.

“Team meeting,” Mizuki announced and elbowed Kisarazu, who had propped himself up on one arm, half-asleep, and was poking slowly at his soup with a spare set of chopsticks.

“M’awake,” Kisarazu insisted.

Yanagisawa snickered and flicked a ball of torn-up napkin into Kisarazu’s soup. Kisarazu didn’t so much blink in response, proving to one and all that, even though Kisarazu’s eyes were open, his brain was still very much absent.

“Yesterday,” Mizuki announced smugly, lounging back in his seat and twirling one lock of hair delicately around his fingers, “Yuta and I gathered important information on our mortal enemy.”

“That stalking them from the bushes is a waste of time, huh?” Yanagisawa taunted him.

Mizuki froze and _glared_ at Yanagisawa in the iciest manner imaginable. “No,” he hissed under his breath, “I’ve uncovered next year’s secret weapon for defeating Seigaku once and for all.”

Akazawa’s eyebrows rose. “Really?” he said sarcastically. “Do tell.”

“Seigaku’s captain next year will be Kaidoh,” Mizuki continued smugly. “Unfortunately, all of my efforts to recruit _him_ to St. Rudolph have been thwarted…” Mizuki stared wistfully off into the distance.

“That’s it?” Nomura scratched his head. “That Kaidoh’s the new captain? I mean, didn’t you already know that? Doesn’t pretty much _everyone_ know that?”

“That’s old news,” Mizuki agreed. “I was merely reminding everyone of that, so the importance of my _new_ information can fully sink in.” He paused dramatically.

Akazawa ground his teeth but refused to take the bait.

“So, apparently Kaidoh’s got a younger brother who will be starting middle school next spring,” Yuta cut in. “Mizuki wants to recruit him.”

Mizuki’s smug look fell at Yuta’s announcement. “You were supposed to let _me_ tell them!” he hissed.

Yuta blinked at him. “Well, you weren’t saying anything, so I thought you weren’t going to.” He returned to inhaling an entire egg in one bite with frighteningly little chewing.

Mizuki crossed his arms over his chest in a huff. “I was building up to it.”

“Oh,” Yuta blinked and guzzled a glass of milk, “sorry.”

Mizuki’s eye twitched, and he and Yuta would probably have gotten into another fight if Akazawa hadn’t cut in.

“You were taking far too long,” he insisted. “Thank you, Yuta.”

“Mou’re mewcome,” Yuta tried talking and chewing at the same time and failed at both.

Mizuki glared at Akazawa before he remembered his own unquestionable brilliance and couldn’t help but smirk again. “In any case, it’s a flawless plan. We _will_ recruit the younger Kaidoh and cripple Seigaku psychologically for the upcoming season! Heh-heh-heh…”

“What _is_ your obsession with little brothers, huh?” Yanagisawa blinked at him curiously. “What, did you always want one yourself or something?”

Kisarazu muttered something like agreement into his soup.

Mizuki huffed. “Are you questioning the brilliance of my plan?” he countered.

“ _I’m_ questioning your brilliance in distracting Yuta from practice, when the team is going to need him in top form next season,” Akazawa countered.

Mizuki scowled at him. “I assure you, Yuta and I have been doing _plenty_ of training together.”

Akazawa grinned evilly. “Oh, I bet you have…” he teased.

Mizuki huffed. “I can’t imagine what you mean. Now, if you’ll excuse us, Yuta and I have to stalk the Kaidoh household from the bushes.”

Akazawa rolled his eyes.

“B-But… Now?” Nomura’s eyes widened. “That means you’ll miss _choir practice_!”

“Whatever. We have choir practice every day, anyway,” Mizuki said breezily.

“Uh, aren’t we doing the chorus where you have your solo today?” Yanagisawa pointed out.

“Yes! Yes, we are,” Nomura fretted.

“Ah, right,” Akazawa said evilly. “That _soprano_ solo of Mizuki’s…” He flashed Mizuki a nasty grin.

Mizuki gave him an outraged look. “Oh, shut it,” he snapped and dragged a still-eating Yuta along after him.

***

The last day before vacation was, thankfully, not too much work. Mizuki and Yuta weren’t the only students playing hooky, and the teachers all seemed too preoccupied to really care. Kaneda got out of his history class early that afternoon, and Father Ito had clearly been itching to get out of there for quite some time before he actually let them go. As a result, Kaneda arrived at tennis practice early and set to warming up by taking several slow laps around the gym.

Kaneda expected practice to be lax today with half the team fleeing the campus for vacation and the other half probably not all that excited about attending an optional practice anyway. He’d heard plenty of his classmates planning to spend the afternoon at the arcade or the movies or the mall. A part of him even wished _he_ were doing something like that, but he knew that Akazawa was busy, and going out alone would be no fun. Akazawa was always busy on Friday afternoons, which was the day he devoted to diving, even during the tennis season. That meant he wouldn’t come to practice today, which just made Kaneda’s mood even sourer.

The echoing of his footfalls through the empty gym was just making him morose, and Kaneda was debating just giving up on practice and tracking Akazawa down to see what he’d wanted from Kaneda that morning before Mizuki’s latest hissy fit had distracted them all. Then two of the first-years turned up, however, and Kaneda was forced to admit that practice really would happen that day.

In the end, only five people besides Kaneda showed up, and he had them all play practice matches against each other since it was officially Christmas break and drills were no fun.

Morino still couldn’t serve worth a damn, but Kaneda went easy on him, and at least the kid had decent volleys. Kaneda won every match he played, no contest, but the match between Hayashi and Yasuda turned out to be pretty close and intense. It wasn’t bad for two second-years who hadn’t had a dream of making regulars this past season.

Kaneda, following the proud tradition formed by all his teachers that day, let everyone out early and spent the rest of the time cleaning out the clubroom, during one of the rare instances when there weren’t twenty teenage boys in there ruining any progress he made faster than he could clean. After an hour of that, even Kaneda decided to call it quits and found himself wandering over in the direction of the pool.

The secret to going to the pool, Kaneda had long since discovered, was always to bring a textbook of some sort with him. That way, when he saw Akazawa in nothing but the skimpiest of bathing suits, water glistening over his bronzed, muscled flesh, Kaneda had something to hold in front of him to hide his erection.

Kaneda gulped now and clutched his math book in front of him so tightly that his knuckles went white.

Akazawa stood on his toes at the tip of the diving board, facing backwards. He bounced twice, causing his ass muscles to go tight and firm, and then leapt into the air, doing some sort of somersault as he went. His body twisted in perfect, lithe motions that nearly caused Kaneda to hyperventilate, and then he stretched out – a graceful, lean ideal of the human form – and pierced the surface of the water.

Kaneda caught his breath and forced himself to calm down while Akazawa was below the surface.

Finally, Akazawa emerged once more, throwing his head back so that pure, crystalline drops of water flew from his hair like some kind of elemental halo. He dipped back down into the water and climbed up the ladder by the side of the pool, and that was when he saw Kaneda.

“Ah, Kaneda, I was hoping to catch you before dinner.” Akazawa emerged from the water, and Kaneda tried not to stare at his naked, wet chest or the bulge at the front of his tiny, black Speedo.

“A-Akazawa-senpai,” Kaneda squeaked and held his math book tighter against his body. “Um, good… I mean, good dive. I mean…” Kaneda gave up; it was simply impossible to speak in coherent sentences when Akazawa was this naked.

Akazawa reached for his towel and began rubbing it all over his body. Kaneda fought down his instinctive urge to take it from Akazawa’s hands at pat down all those glorious muscles himself. “How was practice today?” Akazawa asked, seemingly oblivious to Kaneda’s dilemma.

“Fine,” Kaneda managed to get out. “Great.”

“Mizuki and Yuta were absent?”

Kaneda had to think about that really hard. “Um, yes. I-I was the only regular there.”

Akazawa bent over at the waist and began drying his legs. Kaneda stared in awe at the perfect curve of Akazawa’s ass, on full display before him. “Humph,” Akazawa said to himself. “We didn’t turn out to be so much of a team this year after all, eh, Kaneda?”

Kaneda nodded longingly at Akazawa’s ass, then turned sheepish when he realized what he was agreeing to. “Given the situation,” meaning Mizuki, of course, “you did the best you could, Akazawa-senpai.”

“Hmm,” Akazawa agreed. “And next year?”

Kaneda bit his lip. Akazawa had fought tooth and nail to keep the club from falling entirely into Mizuki’s hands this season, and even he’d barely succeeded. Given that, what chance did someone like _Kaneda_ have, who wasn’t half as strong or talented or confident? Kaneda’s shoulders slumped with the foreknowledge that he was going to fail Akazawa, no matter what.

“I need to shower,” Akazawa said. “Come with me to the locker room?”

 _That_ certainly short-circuited Kaneda’s brain in all the wrong ways. He followed eagerly on Akazawa’s heels, math book clutched firmly before him, and it took him embarrassingly long to realize that Akazawa just wanted to be able to talk to Kaneda further.

“The team’s weakness this year,” Akazawa announced as he slipped into one of the shower stalls and pulled the clear, plastic shower curtain closed behind him, “was a lack of unity.”

Kaneda knew he should turn away, but he just _couldn’t_. He could only see the vague shape of Akazawa’s body, but it was enough. Some tanned, blobby things that had to be Akazawa’s arms paused around the blobby section that was Akazawa’s waist, and then pushed down to Akazawa’s feet as Akazawa bent over.

 _Akazawa-senpai just stripped off his Speedo,_ a blissful voice rang in the back of Kaneda’s mind. Kaneda felt dizzy from a sudden lack of blood to his brain.

The shower water turned on, and Akazawa continued on, oblivious. “Mizuki and I never did reconcile our differences, to the team’s detriment. It was my greatest failure as captain.”

Kaneda shook his head to clear it. “I thought you were a brilliant captain, Akazawa-senpai,” he insisted. “You inspired us all.” Although, if Kaneda thought about it too much, it was possible that Akazawa had mostly just inspired _him_.

Akazawa chuckled to himself as if he realized this as well, and his outline began moving in a way that indicated he was soaping himself up. “I don’t know what I would have done this year without you, Kaneda. Probably strangled Mizuki.”

Kaneda gulped, and his cheeks blushed bright red. “I d-didn’t do anything,” he insisted.

“No?” Akazawa considered. “I can think of a few times when you held me back when I was hurting the team.”

Kaneda didn’t know what to say to that. It wasn’t that he didn’t like praise; he just never had any idea how to respond. Mostly, it just made him embarrassed and awkward.

“You have done for me what Yuta has done for Mizuki, I think,” Akazawa continued. “Mizuki realizes that our…differences in style have hurt the team, as well. I believe that is why he refuses to give up, even now. He doesn’t want to admit his mistake.”

“Are you giving up on us, then, Akazawa-senpai?” Kaneda asked. The thought made him queasy. Things were already hard enough with Akazawa mostly gone. If he withdrew entirely, Kaneda would be all alone, and that thought was _terrifying_.

“Not giving up,” Akazawa insisting. “Passing the team into younger, more capable hands.” The water turned off.

Kaneda sputtered. “Wh-What?”

“You, Kaneda.” The curtain flung open, and Kaneda got a brief glimpse of _way_ too much before Akazawa retrieved his towel and wrapped it around his waist.

Akazawa had hair in _his_ crotch, too. Dark, thick hair. Lots of it. It made something inside Kaneda’s chest feel like it was burning. “Me?” Kaneda squeaked in disbelief.

Akazawa stepped in close, and the steam from his shower billowed all around him, and Kaneda got that stupid vision of the naked chick on the seashell, except it was Akazawa instead of a naked chick, and…

“My last – and perhaps most important – decision as captain is to choose next year’s captain,” Akazawa informed him. “And I choose you.”

Kaneda nodded numbly for several minutes, and his eyelids fluttered shut in anticipation of where his fantasies were going with this scenario.

“Good,” Akazawa nodded to himself. “I’m glad you agree. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to go change.” He left Kaneda standing numbly by the showers, his math book held impotently before him.

It took Kaneda several more minutes to realize what Akazawa just told him.

“ _What?_ ” he finally exclaimed. “Why?”

But, by then, Akazawa was long gone.

***

Kaneda felt queasy that morning, so he skipped breakfast. And since there were no classes, he didn’t have to get up for those, either. As a result, he finally rolled out of bed around noon. It was time for lunch, but he didn’t know what on earth he’d do if Akazawa was at lunch, so he decided to go out.

This happened to be fortuitous – although it was debatable whether for good or bad – because while he was sneaking out of the dorms, he ran right into Mizuki and Yuta, who were clearly sneaking off to bother Kaidoh’s little brother some more.

“Hey, Kaneda,” Yuta perked up at the sight of him. “Why don’t you come join us?”

Kaneda blinked at this, because he’d never been invited along on one of Mizuki’s data-gathering missions before.

Mizuki scowled as well; clearly, it hadn’t been his idea to invite Kaneda.

“Uh,” Kaneda scratched his head sheepishly, “I’d love to, really, but I have to—”

“Great,” Yuta grabbed his arm before he could finish and dragged him along. “Three pairs of eyes are better than two, right, Mizuki?”

Mizuki grumbled, buried his hands in his pockets, and stalked out the front door.

Kaneda held a ways back and whispered to Yuta. “Look, I really don’t think this is a good idea. Mizuki obviously doesn’t want to come, so—”

“I _need_ you to come,” Yuta hissed back. “Mizuki hasn’t left me alone for three days now, and I need someone to distract him while I sort out his Christmas present.”

“Oh. _Oh_.” Kaneda stopped fighting Yuta and smiled at him instead. “Sure. I can help with that.”

Yuta breathed a sigh of relief. The two of them ran to catch up with Mizuki, who was making his way purposefully to the bus stop.

“So, uh… Are we gathering more data on Kaidoh’s little brother today?” Kaneda asked awkwardly, like he hung out with Mizuki every day.

“Obviously.” Mizuki pressed his lips together tightly in annoyance. “Akazawa informed us he made you captain, by the way. Congratulations.” Mizuki didn’t sound pleased with this decision in the slightest. Given that Kaneda’s only real competition had been Yuta, this wasn’t surprising.

“Uh… Thanks.” Kaneda winced. He really would’ve liked the opportunity to try to convince Akazawa that Yuta was _clearly_ the man for the job, before it got announced to the whole team.

“Yeah, congrats,” Yuta agreed and blew on his hands to warm them up before shoving them back deep in his jacket pockets. “Better you than me.”

“Heh,” Kaneda said warily, because he honestly didn’t believe that at _all_.

Thankfully, the bus came then, and it was too crowded for them to really talk until they got to the Kaidohs’ neighborhood. And then Mizuki hushed them both and made them all hide in the bushes, because apparently Kaidoh had very unpredictable jogging routes, and Mizuki didn’t want them to be seen. Given that they were all wearing hats and scarves, Kaneda doubted that Kaidoh would even be able to recognize them.

Yuta gave Kaneda a wink and tilted his head off to one side, which Kaneda interpreted as, “You distract Mizuki, while I go get his Christmas present.” Kaneda nodded and winked back, chasing after Mizuki through the bushes while Yuta snuck off.

Mizuki finally settled down by a gap in the fence outside the Kaidohs’ backyard and hunkered down in the bushes. Kaneda slipped in behind him.

“Here.” Mizuki passed Kaneda an open notebook and pencil over his shoulder without even bothering to glance back at him. “You take dictation.”

Kaneda accepted the notebook, while Mizuki pulled out a pair of binoculars.

“Continuing to operate under the assumption that second floor, third window is Kaidoh Hazue’s window. Time is 1:21 and the blinds are open. Can see movement by the window.”

Kaneda scribbled all this down wearily. Honestly, this felt sort of creepy to him, but presumably Mizuki knew what he was doing.

“Aha.” Mizuki shifted the binoculars downwards. “Kaidoh the elder has just left the building. I repeat, Kaidoh the elder has just left the building.” Mizuki dropped the binoculars and lay flat down on the ground. Kaneda followed his lead.

A minute later, there was the sound of scuffling footsteps, and the gate opened and closed. Kaneda heard a long, slow, hissing “fsssh!” sound and then the sound of running shoes hitting the pavement at a steady jog. Kaneda stayed hidden, his eyes trained on the sidewalk, waiting for the danger to pass.

The problem was that Kaneda was so focused on Kaidoh that he forgot about Mizuki, until he suddenly felt a hand brush up against his inner thigh.

“Eek!” Kaneda let out an unearthly shriek.

“Aiee!” Mizuki screeched right back at him and snatched his hand away.

“You! You!” Kaneda sputtered helplessly.

“You’re _not Yuta_!” Mizuki accused him. “ _Where’s Yuta_?”

“It took you _this long_ to notice who I was?” Kaneda retorted, inching nervously as far away from Mizuki as he could get in the bushes.

Mizuki scowled at him. “Oh, please. Like I’d touch you anyway.”

“You just _did_!” Kaneda insisted.

“I thought you were Yuta.”

“And that makes it _better_?”

Mizuki scowled. “Where. Is. Yuta?” he demanded dangerously.

Kaneda thought fast. “He said I should stick with you while he did recon around front.” Apparently, Kaneda hadn’t thought fast enough, though, because that excuse wouldn’t hold up to any scrutiny.

Indeed, Mizuki gave him a suspicious look and opened his mouth to say something when they spotted Yuta sneaking down the street, crouched down low enough that he couldn’t be seen over the fence.

Kaneda breathed a sigh of relief.

“Where were you?” Mizuki hissed. “Kaneda here almost got us caught.”

Behind Mizuki, Kaneda tried to signal Yuta what the cover story was through eyebrow motions. Yuta blinked at him like he was insane.

“Whatever,” Yuta just grumbled and crouched down next to Mizuki in the bushes. “What’s happening?”

Mizuki snorted but didn’t press the issue. Kaneda was a little awed; apparently Yuta’s persistent, aggressive surliness _did_ have some uses, after all.

“Kaidoh just went out for his afternoon run,” Mizuki informed Yuta. “The little brother is up in his room.”

Yuta took the binoculars from Mizuki’s lap and peered through them at the window. Only, the strap of the binoculars was around Mizuki’s neck, so Yuta ended up pulling Mizuki along with them. Mizuki’s nose ended up inches from Yuta’s hair as a result, and he smiled a blissful little smile. Kaneda was vaguely disturbed.

“Where?” Yuta asked. “The blinds are closed, and the light’s off.”

Mizuki snapped to at that. “What? Let me see.” He snatched the binoculars back.

Even Kaneda could see that Yuta was telling the truth, though. Mizuki and Yuta continued to whisper angrily back and forth, stealing the binoculars from each other over and over again. Kaneda sighed, sat back, and watched the Kaidohs’ gate open and close for a second time.

A boy who could only be Kaidoh’s younger brother peered at where they were all crouching in the bushes, fighting.

Kaneda poked Mizuki in the shoulder.

“Stay out of this,” Mizuki snapped at him, once again refusing to look up. Kaneda concluded that Mizuki _really_ needed to work on that.

“Well, how _did_ you lose him?” Yuta demanded.

“It was all your fault,” Mizuki retorted. “If you hadn’t wandered off and—”

“It’s _my_ fault you can’t pay attention for two whole minutes?” Yuta snapped.

Kaidoh’s little brother walked over to them. He gave Kaneda a little wave.

Kaneda waved back and elbowed Mizuki harder this time.

“Not _now_ , Kaneda,” Mizuki brushed him off. “I say we split up and do an end run around the block to try to—”

“Uh, excuse me?” Kaidoh’s little brother cut in. Hazue, Kaneda thought Mizuki had said his name was.

Mizuki and Yuta froze, then turned to stare as one.

“Eep!” Mizuki squeezed. “My, er, contact lens. Oh no, I have lost my contact lens!” He pretended to search around in the bushes.

Yuta gaped at him like he was nuts.

Hazue coughed pointedly. “Could you maybe not spy on my house all day with your binoculars again?” he asked exceedingly politely. “I have a lot of homework over break, and you’re very distracting.”

Mizuki froze. “My, er, contact lens that I lost two days ago…” he said numbly before shaking his head. “Ah, I can see that you are observant, indeed, to have spotted me,” his manner switched over immediately to confident and boastful.

Hazue blinked at him. “Well, you’ve been sitting in the bushes outside my window for three days with binoculars,” he pointed out. “So, um, I guess?”

“This merely proves that you are a worthy recruit,” Mizuki proclaimed.

“Uh, huh? Aren’t you spying on my brother? He said you were some weird tennis team or something.” Hazue scratched his head.

“We are, indeed, the St. Rudolph regulars,” Mizuki confirmed.

“Oh, uh, hi?”

“And we’re here to recruit you for next year,” Mizuki informed him.

“ _Me_?” Hazue’s eyes bugged out.

“Yes, you,” Mizuki agreed.

“You mean… For tennis?” Hazue sounded very confused.

Mizuki frowned at him as though Hazue were intentionally making this very difficult. “Of course. What else?”

“Uh…” Hazue said sheepishly. “I don’t play tennis. That’s more my brother’s thing. I mostly play chess.”

Mizuki stared at him uncomprehending for several moments. “What do you mean you don’t play tennis?” he asked in disbelief.

“Well, Kaoru tried to teach me once, but I managed to hit myself in the face with my own racket after only two minutes.” Hazue shrugged. “I’m more of a mathlete than an athlete.”

“Bwuh?” Mizuki gaped in horror.

“But, uh, thanks for the thought and, uh, all the time you’ve put in…hiding in the bushes, I guess?” Hazue shrugged. “I’ll tell my brother you said hi.” He waved and headed back over to the gate.

“What?” Mizuki continued to gape at the spot he’d just vacated.

Yuta sighed wearily. “Come on, let’s just go home.”

“But he…” Mizuki visibly wilted as reality sunk in.

“Yeah, it’s cold out,” Kaneda rubbed his hands together and shivered a bit. “Let’s get some tea or something.”

“But I…” Mizuki sputtered.

“Mizuki?” Yuta said worriedly. “Are you okay?”

“Who on earth _doesn’t play tennis_?” Mizuki finally exclaimed in horrified disbelief.

“I don’t know.” Yuta slung an arm around his shoulders and led him away.

“Crazy people,” Kaneda encouraged him.

Mizuki perked up slightly at that thought. “Yes, of course,” he agreed. “That Hazue must be insane. Ah well, better to know now than after he became a regular…”

Yuta and Kaneda just shared a look and a snicker behind Mizuki’s back.

***

Mizuki was morose at dinner that evening, though. Even Yuta stuffed food into his face slightly slower than usual in sympathy.

Kaneda had forgotten about his own problems until he’d seen Akazawa and his heart had squeezed in a funny way. He just _couldn’t_ talk to Akazawa right then, so he elbowed his way in between Yanagisawa and Kisarazu. They teased each other mercilessly through the meal, as per usual, and Kaneda was caught right in the middle of it, so it was physically impossible for anyone to get a word in to him edgewise.

Akazawa looked worried when Kaneda dashed off after the meal without giving them a chance to talk. Kaneda felt guilty about that for a few minutes, but then locked the door of his room behind him and forced himself to work on homework.

It hadn’t been a good day.

***

The next morning, no one bothered to wake Kaneda for breakfast. Apparently, his bad mood had been that obvious. It was just as well because Kaneda wasn’t up to the team’s usual morning antics, anyway. Instead, he lay in bed and stared at the ceiling and, for once, even the thought of Akazawa’s naked body couldn’t distract him…much.

Finally, there was a timid knock on his door. “I-It’s time for choir practice,” Nomura said apologetically when Kaneda finally opened it.

It was their last practice of the season. Tomorrow evening was their Christmas Eve recital, and then they sung one last time for the midnight Christmas mass, and then choir was _over_. Kaneda felt panicky at the whole notion.

“Won’t you miss it?” Kaneda finally forced himself to ask as he and Nomura headed for the music room.

Nomura seemed to get what he meant. “Of course,” he agreed. “But there will be choir at St. Sebastian’s, too.”

“It won’t be the same, though,” Kaneda insisted.

“That doesn’t mean I won’t still enjoy it.”

“Without Sister Catherine on piano?” Kaneda pressed.

Nomura bit his lip. “I’ll still have her for English for a couple more months. I think it’s better to enjoy the time I have left than angst over the fact that the year’s almost over.”

Kaneda didn’t have much to say to that.

Choir practice came and went, for the first time in anyone’s recent memory, without a hitch. Maybe it was because they were so close to the recital or maybe the weight Kaneda felt on his shoulders was on everyone else’s as well. Whatever it was, they all sung like angels, solemn and serious, Akazawa’s rich voice below them all, holding the choir aloft. When they were finished, Sister Sakamoto gave everyone a suspicious look, like she couldn’t believe that they’d actually had a successful practice.

“Just like that tomorrow evening,” she instructed and let them go with the first smile Kaneda had ever seen from her.

Kaneda retreated to his room afterward and debated not going to tennis practice at all that day. However, he was technically in charge of practice now, and if he wasn’t there and someone actually _did_ show up, they wouldn’t be able to get at the equipment.

Five minutes before practice started, Kaneda forced himself to switch into his gym clothes and make his way over to the gym.

And there…

There he got the surprise of his life.

***

“Kaneda, there you are!” Akazawa announced with a broad grin when Kaneda stepped into the gym. “I almost had to play doubles with Yuta.”

Kaneda blinked at the assembled crowd. There were over twice as many people at practice today than there should be, and as Kaneda looked closer, he realized that he didn’t recognize most of them. Then he caught sight of Kaidoh and Momoshiro yelling at each other across the court from Akazawa, and Fuji smiling malevolently next to Yuta, and Kaneda put two and two together.

“Seigaku actually showed up?” he asked in disbelief.

“Those of us who could make it,” Fuji agreed. Seigaku’s numbers weren’t much more impressive than St. Rudolph’s, to tell the truth. Kaidoh, Momoshiro, and Fuji were the only regulars, and there were maybe half a dozen first- and second-year sub-regulars warming up by the far wall.

“Come on,” Akazawa announced. “Let’s play. Kaidoh and Momoshiro have challenged us to a doubles match.”

Kaneda nodded nervously, but then a wave of giddiness swept through him at playing with Akazawa again, against Seigaku again, and he picked up his racket and stepped onto the court. “We have to uphold our perfect record against Seigaku,” he offered encouragingly to Akazawa.

Akazawa grinned back at him.

Kaidoh hissed. “You ready?”

And, like that, the tennis overtook them, and Kaneda had no time for thoughts or worries or anything else as the points tallied up, some for him and Akazawa and others for the Seigaku pair. Kaneda had watched Yanagisawa and Kisarazu’s tough match between these two at Prefecturals, but until now he hadn’t appreciated just how stubborn they could be.

By the time it was 5-3 in his and Akazawa’s favor, the sweat was beading from his forehead, and that grin of delight that only tennis could bring on spread across his face. It was made all the better because it was _Akazawa_ he was playing with, and most of the time Akazawa played like a total singles player, but every so often he’d remember to look Kaneda’s way, remember they were a team, and in those moments, Kaneda felt so _close_ to Akazawa, it was like they were one person.

They eventually won, but that wasn’t really the point. The point was that they had all played wonderful tennis, and it was exhilarating, and for once the large, echoing gym didn’t seem hollow and empty in the off-season, but excited and full of humming anticipation for next season.

Kaneda accepted a towel from Yuta and wiped the sweat from his hair as Mizuki challenged Fuji to a rematch. Fuji, with a secretive little smile, agreed, and the two of them were off.

Kaneda looked around the court, and St. Rudolph and Seigaku’s sub-regulars had all mingled together and were swatting haplessly at wild balls and serving way out of bounds most of the time, but they were laughing and not complaining at all, and Kaneda didn’t think they’d had a practice this fun since the season ended.

“I can’t believe Seigaku actually came,” Kaneda finally shook his head in disbelief and sat between Akazawa and Yuta on the bleachers to fully watch Mizuki and Fuji’s game. So far, they’d each held their service game.

“Hmm,” Yuta said thoughtfully. “I might have made an extra call to encourage them to come.” There was a wicked gleam in his eyes.

Kaneda gave him a curious look. “Oh?”

Yuta tilted his head to the game before them. “I told Shusuke that his Christmas present to me should be my Christmas present to Mizuki.”

Kaneda’s eyes widened. “You didn’t…”

“Didn’t I?” Yuta retorted smugly.

“So your brother’s going to lose on purpose or what?” The score was now 3-all, with neither opponent having lost a service game so far. Kaneda frankly doubted Mizuki had improved _that_ much to do so well on his own.

Yuta snorted. “Hardly. He only promised not to humiliate Mizuki.”

“That wouldn’t be in the Christmas spirit, I suppose,” Kaneda agreed.

“With Shusuke, it’s always better to double-check.”

The game made it to 5-all, and then Fuji finally broke Mizuki’s serve and won 7-5. He must have gotten _scarily_ good when Kaneda wasn’t looking, because Kaneda sure couldn’t see any signs that he’d thrown any of the points. It had looked like a good game to him.

Mizuki seemed quite content with it, as well.

“Next time,” he cackled diabolically, “you won’t stand a chance!”

Fuji smiled, completely not worried.

“Seigaku will meet its downfall at St. Rudolph’s hands, mark my words!”

“We’ll just have to practice twice as hard, then,” Fuji agreed diplomatically. “So, who’s up next?”

Yuta and Kaidoh played a singles match, then, and Momoshiro finally annoyed Mizuki enough that Mizuki challenged _him_ , too, for good measure.

Kaneda sighed as he watched them and relaxed for the first time that week. Beside him, Akazawa leaned forward, elbows on his knees, seemingly intent on the match. He was so close his thigh was warm and solid against Kaneda’s thigh, even though they had plenty of room, so there was no reason for them to sit that close.

“You know,” Kaneda said, “there’s still time for you to make Yuta captain instead of me.”

“Oh?” Akazawa said. “And why would I want to do that?”

“Well, just look at this,” Kaneda gestured to the courts around them, which were full of life. “Yuta pulled this off when even _Mizuki_ couldn’t. And everyone knows he’s a better player than me. I won’t be offended, you know.”

Akazawa chuckled to himself. “Yes, Yuta did an excellent job today.”

Kaneda bit his lip. That was that.

“But you have done an excellent job every today for these last few months, with little to no help from anyone else,” Akazawa continued. “Something like this is fun. But coaching all the beginners day-in and day-out? Refusing to give up on even the most hopeless cases? Holding what’s left of the team together even in the bleakest times? Those, unfortunately, are the tasks a _real_ captain must undertake.”

Kaneda blinked at him in disbelief and felt his cheeks flushing. “But I…” And then he frowned and asked what he really should have asked back when Akazawa first said he was making Kaneda captain. It was a lot easier to think clearly about these things now that Akazawa was fully clothed. “Why me?”

“I knew ever since our doubles match together,” Akazawa answered. “St. Rudolph’s weakness this year was that we didn’t work together as a team. I saw it, and even Mizuki saw it. But you… You managed to make even _me_ work as a team with you, even if you had to drag me into it kicking and screaming.” Akazawa’s shoulder nudged Kaneda’s shoulder, and it was cozy and intimate and wonderful.

Just then, even _Kaneda_ believed he could be a good captain next year. “I-I’ll do my best not to let you down,” he agreed.

“You’ll always have help,” Akazawa assured him. “Yuta will still be with you.”

“He’ll be vice-captain,” Kaneda agreed. “And already the two of us fight less than you and Mizuki.”

Akazawa grinned at him. “Seigaku doesn’t have a chance next year.”

And he sounded so much like Mizuki just then that they both laughed.

***

Seigaku left shortly before dinner. Everyone was so hyped up about the match, though, that it was the only thing they talked about the entire way through. They even moved to one of the larger cafeteria tables, so that the sub-regulars could sit with them as well, and they wouldn’t have to break up the conversation.

“You guys should have told us they were here, huh,” Yanagisawa complained. “Atsushi and I could have had a rematch against Momoshiro and Kaidoh.”

Kisarazu nodded in agreement and scowled at Mizuki for not calling them.

“You two were the ones so convinced that it wasn’t worth coming to practice anymore,” Mizuki said loftily. “Don’t blame me that you missed out.”

Kaneda snorted to himself; _Mizuki_ hadn’t been to practice all month, either. If Yuta hadn’t planned everything in advance, Mizuki would have missed out, too.

“It was a nice reminder of the season ahead,” Akazawa commented. “Sometimes I forget just how much I miss tennis season.”

“Well, don’t forget too much,” Mizuki instructed. “You’re vital in the singles three position for St. Sebastian next year, according to my statistical model.”

Akazawa blinked at him. “ _You’re_ going to St. Sebastian next year?” he asked with more than a little dismay.

“Of course,” Mizuki insisted. “What, did you think I’d start recruiting a high-school team from _scratch_?”

Akazawa groaned.

“In our second year, Kaneda and Yuta will join us, of course,” Mizuki had his notebook out and was outlining a brand new plan. “I hope to have succeeded in driving out whoever is on the current team by that point.”

“By annoying them to death?” Akazawa suggested.

“Yes, by—Hey!” Mizuki exclaimed in outrage when he realized what Akazawa had just said.

Yuta snorted and inhaled a plate full of tempura.

“Around that time, Shinya will have grown dreadfully sick of the excessive amounts of homework at his boring science academy,” Mizuki continued.

“Hey!” Yanagisawa protested.

“And Atsushi will be sick of his brother all over again and will want to go back to somewhere where people can actually tell them apart,” Mizuki concluded.

“You _can’t_ tell us apart!” Kisarazu accused. “You thought I was Ryo!”

Mizuki breezed right over that. “Then, the team will be all back together, and we will…”

“Here it comes,” Nomura breathed.

They all winced in anticipation.

“Finally defeat our eternal rivals once and for all!” Mizuki exclaimed with unholy fervor in his eyes.

Just for once, Kaneda decided to indulge him. “You know,” he said, “I think we will.”

Mizuki beamed.

***

That could have been the perfect end to everything, and Kaneda would have come away from it all thinking it was the best Christmas ever. But that night, as per St. Rudolph tradition, the students who had stayed behind in the dorms threw themselves a party, since Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were busy with things like recitals and masses and school-approved Christmas cheer. The night before Christmas Eve belonged all to the students, though, and someone had decked out all the dorm hallways with holly and wreaths. Kaneda suspected Mizuki just because Mizuki _always_ was the one responsible for things like that, although Mizuki wasn’t saying a word on the subject.

Someone also – and, if it _was_ Mizuki, that would explain why Yuta was looking rather anxious just then – had set up a sprig of mistletoe in the middle of the common room. It was a funny thing for a boys-only dormitory to have, but there it was nonetheless.

“Huh? What, huh?” Yanagisawa had blinked in disbelief when Nomura pointed out where he was standing.

Kisarazu had just snickered at him.

“Oh, yeah?” Yanagisawa countered. “I don’t see _you_ doing anything about it.”

Kisarazu shrugged, leaned in, and gave Yanagisawa a quick peck on the cheek, like it was nothing.

Yanagisawa gaped in shock for a moment, and then his face turned bright red straight from his hairline down to the tip of his chin. “H-Huh…” he finally said dumbly.

Everyone laughed.

“You know,” Mizuki sidled up to Yuta. “There are more snacks in my room. Why don’t you help me get them?” _And head right under the mistletoe in the process,_ was left unsaid.

“Just how stupid do you think I am?” Yuta retorted and engulfed a handful of cookies.

At the rate Yuta was eating, they _were_ going to run out soon, though, so Kaneda decided that – as the new captain – he would let Mizuki have his fun trying to sidle up to Yuta and go get the snacks himself.

Apparently, it was an autopilot sort of thought for a captain to have, because Akazawa did the exact same thing at the exact same time. They met in the middle.

Nomura let out a wolf-whistle, and everyone turned to stare at them.

Akazawa gulped, and he looked like he had no idea what to do with his hands.

Kaneda knew, though. He leaned in, caught Akazawa’s chin in one hand and slid the other firmly around Akazawa’s waist. He still had to arch up on his toes to press his lips solidly against Akazawa’s for one glorious moment.

Akazawa’s lips were warm and soft and then, hesitantly, they were moving back against Kaneda’s in response.

Kaneda finally pulled back and let out a deep, shaky breath. Akazawa looked a little lost and confused as he stared down into Kaneda’s eyes.

And, Kaneda figured, it was moments like these that made the whole contorted mess of puberty worthwhile. He may have had hair in his crotch and a voice that broke far too often and been hopelessly confused about everything in the known universe, but it also meant that he was _growing up_ and, occasionally, he could even take charge in situations like this one.

“Come on.” Kaneda slid his hand around Akazawa’s wrist. “Let’s go get more food.”

Akazawa nodded numbly and let Kaneda lead him away.

They never did manage to make it back from Mizuki’s room that night.

Absolutely no one was surprised, although Mizuki _did_ let out a screech of horror when he realized exactly where they’d ended up.

Akazawa had just laughed and wrapped his arms tighter around Kaneda, and Kaneda had never been happier.

It was a true Christmas miracle.


End file.
